Having arrived early yesterday morning in Kuwait, following a flight from Columbia, and a stop-over in Fort Drum, NY and Germany, I've got a little down time to reflect. We flew on a chartered 767 full of military personnel; our NIACT class side by side with a group from the Army's 10th Mountain Division and two military working dogs (MWDs). The two dogs, young German Shepards, sat with their handlers in the cabin and behaved themselves well. With everyone on board carrying knives and firearms, it was a good thing we didn't require a TSA screening. We boarded the plane by rank (lowest first, boarding to the rear); the Lieutenants, Lieutenant Commaders and I wound up somewhere in what would be considered business class seating. After the decent through the clouds, I peered out the window and saw a familiar sight: the clusters of flickering orange lights from the oil well flare-off towers from the off shore rigs in the Persian Gulf. I've seen these many times, both from the water and from the air. I had a bit of a flashback-for a minute I could have sworn I rewound the clock to May when I flew that same route home from Bahrain; not a particularly great flight-I was emotionally exhausted then from the deployment and worried about my career and the hurdles that lay ahead. This time was different; I was surrounded by folks who were looking to me for guidance; this was my fifth deployment and the Persian Gulf and Kuwait have almost become my second home, having spent half of the last almost five years patrolling its waters and kicking rocks down its dusty harbor town streets.
As the plane dropped lower still, I could see the Kuwait City lights and shore line; the buildings and street lights outlinend with glowing halos from the dust and sand suspended in the air, typical of the Gulf this time of year. The plane landed, we debarked, and were quickly whisked away from the plane to a secure military part of the airport waiting for transportation to our forward staging area. The desert palm trees swayed in the breeze and the air was heavy with the omnipresent dust. I could taste the dust again, with its gritty texture between the teeth, the sting in the eyes, and the earthy smell of potting soil-I really haven't been away from here long enough to forget it.
We drove about two hours from Kuwait City to a forwarwd staging base. This base is built on the location of a very large Desert Storm tank battle, infact one of the largest tank battles since WWII. This has historically been the place that all new arrivals in theater headed to or coming from Iraq have transfered through-and its really only transients. No one is really stationed here with the exception of the support staff (mostly National Guard) who run the physical duties of maintaining a base (power, water, security, logistics) and those who are tasked with processing and organizing those groups coming through. Here we live in large tents, about 150-ft long by 25-ft wide, about fifty bunks to a tent and packed full of people and gear. The tents resemble large greenhouses with an arched roofs. The Navy portion of the base is far from the center and all it's locations of note and nightime hotspots: the base exchange, post office, dining facility, USO tent, and ATT&T calling center and internet tent. We shower in a trailer (until the water allotment for the morning runs out and the storage tank empties) and the toilets are in upscale porta-poties (pastic walled stand-alone units, but with a porcelean urinal, and flushing toilet). We share the base with those soliders on their way home from Iraq; many of them infact, soldiers who deployed in May thinking they'd be in Iraq until at least June of 2012, but as of a few weeks ago, most would be home for Thanksgiving and all would be home for Christmas. Maybe now the Army can do it's own job now and not rely on Navy personnel to do the work they either can't or choose not to.
We'll be here for a few more days taking care of administrative processing and acclimation to the timezone and weather. Our schedule is intentionally left empty to allow for sitting around and catching up on sleep. We average about one mandatory event a day; usually a briefing or some other task-but mostly we sit around and wait, passing the time until we can call home (eight hour time zone different to EST) or until the next meal.
As the plane dropped lower still, I could see the Kuwait City lights and shore line; the buildings and street lights outlinend with glowing halos from the dust and sand suspended in the air, typical of the Gulf this time of year. The plane landed, we debarked, and were quickly whisked away from the plane to a secure military part of the airport waiting for transportation to our forward staging area. The desert palm trees swayed in the breeze and the air was heavy with the omnipresent dust. I could taste the dust again, with its gritty texture between the teeth, the sting in the eyes, and the earthy smell of potting soil-I really haven't been away from here long enough to forget it.
We drove about two hours from Kuwait City to a forwarwd staging base. This base is built on the location of a very large Desert Storm tank battle, infact one of the largest tank battles since WWII. This has historically been the place that all new arrivals in theater headed to or coming from Iraq have transfered through-and its really only transients. No one is really stationed here with the exception of the support staff (mostly National Guard) who run the physical duties of maintaining a base (power, water, security, logistics) and those who are tasked with processing and organizing those groups coming through. Here we live in large tents, about 150-ft long by 25-ft wide, about fifty bunks to a tent and packed full of people and gear. The tents resemble large greenhouses with an arched roofs. The Navy portion of the base is far from the center and all it's locations of note and nightime hotspots: the base exchange, post office, dining facility, USO tent, and ATT&T calling center and internet tent. We shower in a trailer (until the water allotment for the morning runs out and the storage tank empties) and the toilets are in upscale porta-poties (pastic walled stand-alone units, but with a porcelean urinal, and flushing toilet). We share the base with those soliders on their way home from Iraq; many of them infact, soldiers who deployed in May thinking they'd be in Iraq until at least June of 2012, but as of a few weeks ago, most would be home for Thanksgiving and all would be home for Christmas. Maybe now the Army can do it's own job now and not rely on Navy personnel to do the work they either can't or choose not to.
We'll be here for a few more days taking care of administrative processing and acclimation to the timezone and weather. Our schedule is intentionally left empty to allow for sitting around and catching up on sleep. We average about one mandatory event a day; usually a briefing or some other task-but mostly we sit around and wait, passing the time until we can call home (eight hour time zone different to EST) or until the next meal.
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